


At The Edge of A Beginning

by wickedtrue



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Manga), Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Crystal Tokyo Era, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedtrue/pseuds/wickedtrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Majid always knew he was unique beyond his white hair.  His mother thought it was her fault, crossing the radioactive wastes to trade with the farther off cities.  His grandmother blamed his long-dead father for leaving them alone.  Majid dreamed instead of a city on the moon, a Little King, and a Golden Soldier who could strangle bears with her bare hands.</p>
<p>
  <i>Written for the Shittenou Ficathon 2012</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>It's hard to say anything about this fic without revealing too much, but it is one thought experiment on what Crystal Tokyo could be.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	At The Edge of A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> If left to my own devices, I always write a fairy tale. :D It's hard to say anything about this fic without revealing too much, but it is one thought experiment on what Crystal Tokyo could be.

  
_"I know you are out there right now, not knowing I exist, like a village on the volcano of my heart."_

 

***

Majid always knew he was unique beyond his white hair.

His mother thought his odd hair was her fault: something she had done wrong during her pregnancy, forcing herself to work even until her ninth month, even crossing once along the Bad Trails that criss-crossed the edge of the radiation wasteland outside the old cities. She would slip him an extra sweet when she could, little slightly sugared nuts and baked sweet breads, in some sort of extended apology. Majid would smile and make sure to share. His grandmother blamed his father, a trader who had disappeared along the Bad Trails not long after he was conceived. If his father had not disappeared, his mother would not have taken up the reins herself as trader to care for her mother-in-law and her future baby. But Majid would tell his grandmother, "Allah painted me, no one else." And he held his grandmother's hand when she cried and said she missed his father, but she loved her smart, winter grandson.

Majid dreamed every night. His dreams were complex and full of colors, wonders that he had never seen the like of in his life. He always had a playmates, four young men (there were not many young men his age, and it was nice to have this dream). They would chase each other with wooden swords, roll and wrestle about in meadows of flowers and streams. They would talk for hours about nothing and everything, and they were always there, always his friends. Especially his Little King. For he was both his friend and the person he must look after the most, for his Little King would always scrape his knees or get himself into trouble, chasing after pretty ladies that he shouldn't or ideas that were best saved for when he ruled his kingdom (and he would be a great king, Majid knew).

"What did you dream of this time, my love?" his mother would ask him over breakfast (bread mash, butter, with a slice of cheese warmed over the hearth).

"I walked on a glittering, golden path on the Moon," he explained. "It was beautiful with white sculptures and everything, even the stairs, were like art. And when I looked up, I could see the Earth. I could pick out where the old cities had been."

His grandmother snorted and told him to eat. "You and your imagination," she would tease him, always pleased.

When he was older, he tried to keep the nightmares to himself: the dark dreams of armies of twisted creatures with claws for hands and mouths like knives that marched, marched, marched across the stars to the Moon and the Earth. The times he dreamed he held a sword and a shield, and how it felt to smash the side of his blade against the head of an enemy. And the Red Woman who was twisted, even in her shadow (her shadow that watched him with red, red eyes). He tried, but his mother wormed it out of him when he started to look pale from lack of sleep. She sent him to work with the Aja and some of the other men after his morning studies (his teacher thought he learned writing and math too quickly) to distract him. He would fall head first into his pillow at night, after long hours of work on repairing the aquifers and power generators, and his sleep would be almost dreamless.

Almost.

His mother never could pull from him everything. His grandmother said Allah filled Majid with secrets at his birth. He couldn't argue, because the Golden Soldier was his secret. She would ride with him into battle, tackle the twisted claw creatures and fight them with glowing hands. Though he could never see her face clearly, he knew her eyes were blue like the sky. She kept her hair long and golden, even when she fought, and her smile was beautiful and terrifying. When the nightmares were too much, he would pretend she would sit next to his bed at night and whisper, "Do not worry, my Majid. I will strangle all the bears under your bed with my bare hands." She would crack her knuckles and smile, and he believed her.

He could not tell his mother that, sometimes, he thought his Golden Soldier was the most beautiful woman in the world, even more beautiful than her. That sometimes, she would stand on her tiptoes (he was also so tall, in his dreams) and whisper a name he did not understand in his ear, and her hair would smell of starlight and ozone. Sometimes, he did not want to wake up from his dreams.

***

He was twenty-four years old when he was made Aja of his mother's township. The old Aja's knuckles were starting to swell and his back could not take as much labor. No one but Majid was surprised when the old Aja took him into his house one evening, and told him that Majid was his chosen successor.

"But Aja, you have many years left to--" Majid protested.

"Yes, yes, I have many years left in me. But my hands and knees," he said, shaking his hands and stretching his fingers, "not as much. I'm still young enough that I know when to step aside and let someone else throw their ideas about. I can help smooth things for you as we go."

"But--"

"Tell me about your plans for the new underground reservoir."

And so, Majid was the new town Aja. He helped dig and seal the deep, underground water reserve for the growing fields and people. He learned beside the older men about the new solar panels that the traders were bringing from the Crystal City, somewhere deep across the Wastes, beyond the steppes and mountains. Each panel was as thin as a piece of paper and could be rolled or cut and still work, not even needing a wire to connect it to the power source.

"Almost magic," one of the older men whispered. "I saw stuff like that in the movies, all that CGI. Never thought I'd actually touch it."

"Ha, used to say that about those tiny ass cell phones," one of the old, old, grizzled men laughed. "Hated those damn touch screens. Not built for fat fingers."

His mother was excited when he gave her a small sliver of a panel. It powered her precious coffeemaker, and he got an extra helping of her famous pomegranate soup that night.

***

The ice house had been his first large project. He had the community salvage the giant orange containers the old timers said had been sent back and forth across the oceans in the days past. Using the sturdy plastic and metal walls, they dug out a new ice and cold storage, mostly buried in the hard desert. He was sitting cross-legged on the tiled roof, listening to his grandmother go one on about "faloodeh" while his two apprentices snickered at the idea of cold sugar noodles.

That's why he was the first one to see the woman walk out of the desert in a haze of fire.

He sent his apprentices to help his grandmother with lunch, and waited for the woman made of fire to approach.

"Do you know me?" she asked him with red eyes and wild, dark hair that whipped in the wind.

He remembered his nightmares, the sky with red eyes that laughed as he covered himself in the blood of his enemies. He remembered another red woman, made of fire, dancing across his armies as she burned them, and then laughing as another man gutted her on the field.

"...are you here for your vengeance?" he asked her.

She smiled, and he knew her name. Mars shook her head. "I am here for you. We have looked for you a very long time."

"Me? You seek me?" This woman smelled of magic (he had never believed in such things before, but this woman was magic, pure and simple). "I am nothing, but my people--"

"Then, I will leave you." She cut him off. She smiled as she turned herself into a flame once more and walked back out into the desert until she disappeared.

Majid was suddenly very weary and tired.

***

He dreamed of the Little King that night. The Little King was young, very young, and Majid’s dream self was not so young any more. He taught the Little King that he must hold his sword just right to strike the practice dummy. He felt such pride when he saw the Little King age and hit the dummy, the soldiers, himself just right with sword and his shield. The young man ripped his helmet off his head and grinned. "I did it! I did it--" The Little King used a name for him, but he always lost it in the shadows of his dreams.

Then, he was dreaming of the last great battle. The Little King (who was not so little any more) was bloodied and raging. "Why, why?!" he screamed. And Majid's dream self laughed and laughed.

He woke in a sweat. But he could swear, he heard his Golden Soldier whisper, "Not yet, not yet. Go back to sleep," in his ear.

Instead, he walked outside, climbed back on the roof of ice house, and watched the sun rise.

This time, the Little King walked out of the desert with the rising sun. He was not little any longer. He looked to be about Majid's age, but he knew better. His king was much, much older.

"Do you know me?" he asked Majid. His armor was polished, his sword in a battle-scarred scabbard at his side. He was tired, Majid could tell.

And he knew him. He knew everything, then. His first life, the Moon Kingdom, the Princess in the Moon. The Darkness that devoured him (that he let in through his frustration with his king and his own divided heart), the blood that he spilled. He remembered his reincarnation, and his continued failure. His prison with his brothers (brothers, brothers, he had four! How could he forget them?), and the choice a beautiful woman with long, long hair offered him a long time ago, to escape his rock and be with his future King or to let the universe have him so he may be remade into someone entirely new.

Majid swallowed hard. He climbed down from his half-finished ice house, and fell to his knees with his head bowed. "My King," he told his Little King's (not at all so little, he was the great King he always knew his charge could be) armor-clad boots. He shoved his long white hair aside from the back of his neck and leaned forward so his King could have a clear view. "You may have my life, however you deem to spend it."

"Kunzite."

Majid closed his eyes at the King's use of his true name. When he opened them, his king was offering his hand to help Majid up.

"Why do you always assume the worst?" King Endymion asked him. "Mars said you asked if she was seeking her vengeance. You offer me your life to take as I please. Why can't you ever assume I want to simply talk to you?"

Majid couldn't help himself: he laughed. Endymion rubbed the sweat from his brow and laughed as well as he helped Majid stand back up.

"So, this is your village." Endymion commented, looking out over the fields and humble houses the community had managed to create for itself over the last twenty years.

"This is my home," Majid corrected him. "These people look to me for leadership."

Endymion winced.

"You've come to ask me back into your service." Majid explained for him. "You will ask, and you know I will never deny you, for I am bound to you. More, I would never say no. I want to be with you, my King."

"You don't know me," Endymion started.

"I don't," Majid agreed. "But I knew a man like you. Not once, but twice. And I betrayed him each time."

"And I betrayed my Queen more than that," Endymion admitted. "No soul is clean and untouched, even hers. It is what makes us human, in the end."

They both paused together, watching the desert and the animals scurry back to their hiding places as the sun rose.

"I want you to think about it. I will not accept any answer you give me now. Think about it, and if you want to rejoin us, we will come for you. Or, you can stay here, with your people. You have earned a rest with a life less burdensome, Kunzite. Can you do this for me?"

Majid frowned, because he had given his answer, but he nodded after a long moment. His King smiled, bright like the sun, and clapped Majid on the shoulder.

"I must go. I can only sneak away for so long before I am noticed. I will see you again, Kunzite, no matter your choice." And the King walked back into the sun, and Majid was once again alone with his thoughts.

***

The Old Aja did not understand when Majid explained that he had to find a new successor. Nor was he happy when Majid said that he must leave the village.

His mother wept, begging him to explain himself. His grandmother only said, "My grandson has always been full of secrets," and asked nothing more.

Three months passed, and when he awoke that morning, he knew they would come for him today. His grandmother took one look at his face that morning and made him a basket of fresh bread to take with him. His mother began to cry again, fat tears that made her face red, but she did not ask him to stay again.

He walked to the edge of the village with the sun still rising over the horizon, his mother and grandmother following his every step.

He thought his King would be the one to take him to his new kingdom, or even Mars, the woman on fire. It was foolish of him to think that. This time, the desert glittered in the rays of the freshly risen sun, and his Golden Soldier stepped out of the last rays.

In his dreams, she had been beautiful and clever. In the real light of the sun, he was breathless.

She smiled at him, shy but still a warrior with hands that could strangle a bear. "Do you know me?" she asked.

Majid stepped forward, looking down at the top of her golden head (for he was taller than her now, just like in his dreams). "I do not know you, lady," he whispered, and she looked sharply up at him with very blue eyes. "I knew the person you were, once. I... I would be honored if I could know the person you have become."

She blinked at him, obviously shocked, then smiled, so very shy and so very pleased. Venus (he always knew her name, didn't he? Of course.) offered her hand. "Will you come with me, Kunzite?"

"Let me--" He turned and kissed his mother and grandmother on each cheek.

His mother still cried but she nodded in understanding. "I knew I only had you a short time," she whispered to him. "You were too special. Please, if you can, see me again?" He promised, if he could.

His grandmother fussed with his hair and collar before kissing him quickly. "Go, go, before I change my mind!"

Majid turned back to the Golden Soldier that had walked out of the sun, and smiled. "I am ready now. Venus."

"Let's finally make our own destiny," she whispered, and took his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was so much fun to write! I know I say that about all of them, but it was! I had one idea for a story, then dumped it and started in on this one last moment. It was fun to build the layers about the world that could be outside Crystal Tokyo. Also, to bury but not too much that Majid was Kunzite. I wanted it to be hopeful but open ended. I hope you all enjoyed!


End file.
